Opening Statement By Chairman Brian Baird
Good morning and welcome to today’s hearing.
Today is the 51st day of a national tragedy that is still unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. The BP Deepwater Horizon oil well blowout and catastrophic explosion took the lives of eleven men and resulted in an ongoing, massive oil spill. It devastated commercial fisheries and it is threatening coastal wetlands throughout the region.
According to estimates by the U.S. Geological Survey, the BP Deepwater Horizon spill is now 2 to 4 times the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill. This is the largest oil spill ever to originate in U.S. waters. And it is growing in size every day.
A little over a year ago, I chaired a hearing entitled, “A new direction for federal oil spill research and development”. The hearing was spurred by the Cosco Busan spill in San Francisco Bay in 2007 and Ms. Woolsey’s subsequent legislation. I want to thank Ms. Woolsey for her leadership on that legislation and for her continual dedication to this important issue.
I, like most Americans, am frustrated. We have a massive ongoing response effort with tens of thousands of people working in the Gulf to clean up this oil. Response workers are deploying boom, conducting in situ burns, skimming oil from the surface of the water, dispensing chemical dispersants, and picking up tar balls from beaches. Responders are working to protect the Gulf, its wetlands, beaches, fisheries, and industries. They are working to protect our way of life.
Unfortunately, our response tools need improving. We are using essentially the same tools in the Gulf as we were using in 1989 in Prince William Sound, Alaska. These tools did not work well then.
In Alaskan coastal zones that were fouled by the Exxon Valdez spill, scientists discovered oil that has scarcely changed 16 years later. Beaches still ooze oil and scientists expect the oil to remain—perhaps even for centuries. It takes years to recover and cleanup from oil spills.
According to the Committee on the Marine Transportation of Heavy Oils, most oil spills experience a 10 to 15 percent rate of recovery. More research and development is necessary to reach acceptable levels of mitigation.
Oil spills occur every day in America. We need a better understanding of how oil spills affect the environment and we need better tools to clean them up. There is a big need here for targeted scientific research, development and technology.
Exxon Valdez served as a catalyst for the passage of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA 90). This legislation expanded the federal government and industry’s capacity for oil spill prevention, preparedness, and response. The goal of Title VII of OPA 90 was to coordinate federal research to encourage the development of new technologies to address oil spills. Despite the Interagency Committee’s detailed research plan, there have been modest technological advances in oil spill cleanup technology since the law was enacted.
In 2007 the Cosco Busan spill highlighted our need for better oil spill response tools. And today, the BP Deepwater Horizon spill highlights the research and technology needs of oil spill cleanup again.
The purpose of this hearing is to focus on how to better prepare ourselves for these incidents through scientific research and better federal coordination.
However, we face new challenges that require resources and our brightest minds to push the envelope of research and technology development. We face a future of oil exploration and transport at depths and in regions never before imagined. Spills will happen and we need proper tools to respond—to protect our economy, our environment, and our way of life. It is undeniable that the United States needs a more robust research and development strategy to reduce the environmental and economic impacts of oil spills.
I think that I speak for us all when I say that watching the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill on TV and in the paper is frustrating and discouraging. The challenges before us are great. And the time to act is now.
Today we will hear from our expert panels of witnesses on how we can fill these gaps and move forward with an effective response to oil spills.
We have two excellent panels of witnesses who will discuss what is needed for an effective and coordinated federal oil spill response as well as the research and technology needs for oil spill cleanup.
I thank all of you for being here with us today and now I recognize our Ranking Member, Mr. Inglis, for his opening statement.
Opening Statement By Chairman Bart Gordon
Good morning. I want to thank the Energy and Environment Subcommittee for holding such an important hearing this morning.
Tragically, eleven lives were lost on April 20th, and the livelihoods of many along the Gulf coast will be affected for years to come by the oil that continues to flow now 51 days later.
To date, there have been 13 Congressional hearings on this spill. However, this Committee is the first to look at the scientific and technological tools we need to effectively remove the oil from the water and cleanup our ocean, marshes, and shorelines.
Furthermore, I expect that the Committee will hold a similar hearing on the science and technology needs for spill prevention and mitigation at the wellhead.
The BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill is an unprecedented tragedy, but oil spills happen in this country and around the world everyday. We must push the envelope of research and technology to learn how to better respond to these incidents.
The lack of an effective response to this spill highlights the need for a more reliable and standardized approach to response and remediation. We need to eliminate the guesswork, and go into spills knowing which tools are most effective in certain conditions.
For example, a Norwegian company has made innovative strides in oil boom technology. If there are standards and technologies we can learn from other countries, or from our own university and industry scientists, we need to leverage it. We need to tap every resource of knowledge available to us.
I understand it takes time and resources to research and develop new technologies and I am glad that we have two panels of experts to help us begin this conversation today.
Thank you all for being here and I look forward to your testimony.
Witnesses
Panel I
0 - Mr. Douglas Helton
Incident Operations Coordinator Office of Response and Restoration National Ocean Service at NOAA Office of Response and Restoration National Ocean Service at N
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0 - Dr. Albert Venosa
Director Land Remediation and Pollution Control Division National Risk Management Research Laboratory Land Remediation and Pollution Control Division National R
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0 - Captain Anthony Lloyd
Chief, Office of Incident Management and Preparedness U.S. Coast Guard U.S. Coast Guard
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0 - Ms. Sharon Buffington
Chief, Engineering and Research Branch Offshore Energy Minerals Management Offshore Energy Minerals Management
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Panel II
0 - Dr. Samantha Joye
Professor of Marine Sciences University of Georgia University of Georgia
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0 - Dr. Nancy Kinner
University of New Hampshire Co-Director Coastal Response Research Center (CRRC) Coastal Response Research Center (CRRC)
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0 - Dr. Jeffrey Short
Pacific Science Director Oceana Oceana
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0 - Dr. Richard Haut
Senior Research Scientist Houston Advanced Research Center Houston Advanced Research Center
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0 - Mr. Kevin Costner
Partner Ocean Therapy Solutions Ocean Therapy Solutions
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